Well friends, our time in central Swaziland is coming to a close. After a great day of ministry and worship at the youth leader’s retreat, full of laughter and fun, the team headed up to Hawane Baptist Church, where we greeted some of our greatest friends and were treated a private concert by the youth choir. Such gifts! We then had dinner with one very special lady, Gogo Sandu. We are so thankful for her and what a blessing she is to all of us!
Today was bittersweet in so many ways. We didn’t get nearly enough time with our friends at youth leader’s retreat, and so many of us are so tired of having to say goodbye to our friends. We love these people with all of our heart, and only getting to see them every once in a while is so difficult. But, on the plus side, so many new connections were formed and have been grown in these days in Swaziland! Praise God!
The last few days have been heavy for us, both emotionally, physically, and spiritually. We’ve been fighting exhaustion, while diving deep into ministry alongside of our friends. So today we finally had a bit of light. After youth leader’s retreat, we took two of our friends home to Hawane from Manzini. Jimmy was not too familiar with the route and was asking one of our friends Pearl which direction he should traveling and she kept saying “left, left”. Well left honestly meant straight. After literally 10 different wrong turns, we FINALLY got to our destination. Needless to say we laughed a lot, and our phrase for these kinds of moments? “This is Africa!”
There have been so many moments of “lostness” on this trip. We’ve been lost physically more than once. We’ve been lost mentally as we try to process and internalize this whole trip. We’ve been lost emotionally as we begin to comprehend the vastness of the love that we feel for this country. And we’ve been lost spiritually, soaking in the grace of Christ and his death and resurrection and its implications for this country. As we’re coming into the home stretch on this journey, we’re soaking in these final moments of lostness. We’re relishing every second we have left.
Pray for us. Pray that our hearts would be fully engaged in our personal health and the mission here. Pray that we stay lost. Pray that we continue to encourage and love on our Swazi friends as we leave for the Northeast tomorrow.
As we’ve found out today, being a little (or a lot) lost isn’t so bad after all.
